Poll: 60 percent of Americans say Russia meddled in 2016 election

A majority of Americans believe Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, according to a new Ipsos Poll, though there’s a sharp disparity along party lines.

Eighty-five percent of Democrats and 53 percent of independents say that Russia meddled in the election, while less than half of Republicans — 46 percent — share this same belief.

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The poll comes as President Donald Trump faces bipartisan rebuke over his performance at a Monday summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump sided with Putin over his own intelligence agencies at a joint press conference in Helsinki, telling reporters that he didn’t “see any reason why it would be” Russia that interfered in the election. He has since walked back that statement, saying Tuesday that he misspoke at the press conference.

“The sentence should have been: ‘I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be Russia,’” Trump said.

The poll found that two-thirds of Americans are following special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russia’s influence on the election and nearly half talk to friends and family about the investigation. Democrats are more likely to both follow the investigation (80 percent) and actively discuss it (62 percent) than their Republican counterparts. About 69 percent of Republicans say they follow the investigation, while 49 percent talk to their social circle about it.

The starkest contrast in beliefs on the investigation is in the perception of political bias against Trump. A large majority of Republicans (75 percent) believe the FBI’s investigation is the result of anti-Trump bias, while much smaller numbers of Democrats (32 percent) and independents (36 percent) hold these same beliefs.

Similarly, a majority of Democrats (66 percent) approve of Mueller’s investigation, while 30 percent of Republicans and 35 percent of independents agree.

A little more than half of poll respondents (54 percent) were aware of FBI agent Peter Strzok’s testimony in front of Congress, while two-thirds knew about the recent indictment of 12 Russians for election interference.

The online poll, conducted July 16-17, surveyed roughly 1,005 adults from across the U.S.